The Tyranny of Competencies
How well has this system served us?
It’s easy to see the virtues of competency-based learning. If we know the skills required for a role, we can develop to those skills. We can manage and we can coach to them. We can ensure that all learning provided by the organization, of whatever type, supports those skills. In my long career I’ve seen the most elegant competency-based systems in consulting and professional services – in firms like Infosys, where the only thing we really have to sell, at the end of the day, is our skill, talent, and expertise.
It’s been a joy to participate in such a system. But I’d like to propose that delivering on the promise of building employee competence is necessary but insufficient. It’s not enough to make an impact on individuals – the L&D function must also make an impact on the business.
To provide employees with the skills and tools they need to do their jobs: This is the first order of training. The second, and higher order of training, is to move the needle on critical business initiatives.
In any given year, every company has a handful of strategic initiatives that are critical and timebound. I worked with a retail bank recently that was changing its strategic focus from operational efficiency to customer experience. I worked with a huge manufacturing purchasing department that was trying to change its approach from beating up its suppliers to collaborating with them. These initiatives obviously had great skill and capability implications, but in both cases, because L&D was so focused on delivering job skills to the organization, they were not “at the table” when it came to planning for, and executing, these strategic change initiatives.
How can the L&D organization evolve to meet this second challenge? At one company I know, rolling learning curricula or “academies” are developed and implemented to support key business initiatives. These academies are instituted based on current business needs, and then retired when the initiative has completed or is in sustainment phase. These academies don’t replace the bread-and-butter work of L&D in building programs to enhance job competence, they are an enhancement or an addition to the existing mission of L&D.
